NEWS


Press Release: Examine & Assess Successful Strategies to Lower Costs & Improve Consumer Health HyperLink

 Fasten your seatbelts for one of the most productive healthcare leadership events in 2008: Consumer Health World Conferences, May 4-7, 2008, Las Vegas, NV, The Venetian Resort Hotel sets the stage for all stakeholders to identify and assess integrated solutions for improving healthcare and lowering costs.

Unwelcome Suprise: Family Practitioners Switch to Boutique Care HyperLink

 Some 5,000 Northern Virginia residents are thinking about switching to what's sometimes called boutique, or concierge, care.

Center for Health Innovation Identifies Key Trends In Value-based Health Design HyperLink

 The Center for Health Value Innovation, has identified five key trends in value-based health design which are impacting the construction and implementation of programs in 2008-2009.

Retiree Couple Needs $225K for Medical HyperLink

 A couple retiring this year will need about $225,000 in savings to cover medical costs in retirement, according to a study released Wednesday by Fidelity Investments.

Insurer's lower-cost plans offer Latinos care in U.S., Mexico HyperLink

 For a decade, Jim Arriola, 49, has been tackling one of the most vexing problems facing the health care industry: finding ways to pay for the medical care of some of the millions of people who don't have insurance, particularly Latinos who make up a majority of the uninsured in California.

Enticing locales beckon with... transplants HyperLink

 Flat screen TVs. Air conditioning. Pull-out couches, mini-bars, microwaves, wireless Internet and low, low prices. All this and world-renowned tourist sites within walking distance. Not that you'll be doing much walking. You'll be recovering from surgery in India, Africa or Thailand, where hospitals tempt patients with amenities usually aimed at tourists.

Flat Medicine? Exploring Trends in the Globalization of Health Care HyperLink

 Trailing nearly every other industry, health care is finally globalizing. Highly trained and experienced expatriate health care professionals are returning to their home countries from training in the West or are staying home to work in newly developed corporate health care delivery systems that can compete quite favorably with less-than-perfect providers in Europe and North America.

Consumer medical devices market could be $5 billion by 2011 HyperLink

 Due to the growth of diabetes, hypertension, respiratory diseases and obesity, revenue for manufacturers of consumer home-use medical devices could hit the $5 billion mark by 2011, according to a report from Wellingborough, England-based research unit InMedica.




The GOP's Prescription for Health Care HyperLink

 Health care has been a sleeper issue in the Republican presidential primaries. But as we heard in President Bush's State of the Union address last night, the GOP does have ideas -- big and transformative ideas designed to energize the free market to target many of the problems that plague our health sector.

Crossing Borders for Medical Care Rising HyperLink

 With more than 150,000 Americans traveling out of the country for medical procedures and an estimated $20 billion in profits in 2006, the medical tourism industry has long since passed fad status, according to Josef Woodman, author of "Patients Beyond Borders," a guidebook for those considering medical travel. Woodman was one of the featured speakers at the International Medical Tourism Conference, sponsored by Consumer Health World in early December in suburban Washington, D.C., that attracted people from all over the world.

Op-Ed on E-Prescribing by Newt Gingrich and John Kerry HyperLink

 In 1799, doctors likely hastened the death of George Washington by draining a third of his blood to treat a bacterial infection. Bleeding was a common practice in those days, it dates back to the Greeks and Romans. But nowadays, if a doctor used bloodletting he would be barred from practicing medicine. In the age of the Internet, is it any less inexcusable that we have yet to modernize and transform our health-care system?

Does Socialism Work? Debunking the Myths HyperLink

 David Himmelstein and his wife Steffie Woolhandler are associate professors at Harvard Medical School. Together they are a one-couple team, promoting Canadian national health insurance in the United States. They provide the intellectual leadership for the Physicians for a National Health Program. They are about the only academics around whose scholarship routinely gives aid and comfort to the advocates of socialized medicine, unless you count the Commonwealth Fund. They are pleasant (at least to me); they are dedicated; and they are wrong.

Laissez Faire Medicine HyperLink

 Many, many years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow wrote an article about asymmetry of information in medical care (your doctor knows more than you do). Since then, countless textbook authors, op-ed writers and policywonk briefers have seized on Arrows observation to argue that a free market will not work in health care.

Employers, Insurers Consider Overseas Health Care HyperLink

 Maybe you are going to have surgery, a serious but routine procedure like hip replacement, cataract removal, a heart bypass. Would you prefer to have it done at your local hospital or at one in Singapore, Thailand or Costa Rica? That's a choice Americans are increasingly being asked to make.

Medical Tourism, and the Costs of Traveling for Care HyperLink

 The need for affordable surgeries has some Americans boarding planes to exotic locations such as India, Malaysia and Panama. Guests who sought care overseas talk about the benefits and costs.

Insurance Industry Watches Medical Tourism HyperLink

 More Americans are looking abroad for medical care. A hospital in Thailand is a leader in the field of medical tourism, doing everything U.S. hospitals do at a fraction of the cost. U.S. health insurers are taking notice.

Employers May Sponsor Overseas Surgeries HyperLink

 If you get your health insurance on the job, and you need major surgery, you may soon have the option to have your procedure performaed in India or Thailand -- saving both you and your employer a bunch of money.

Steve Case Discusses CDHP Trends and Projections HyperLink

 Steve Case, CEO of Revolution Health Group, shares his business strategy and talks about the solutions his company provides for employers.

Health Care When You Want It HyperLink

 Much of the recent debate about how to reform our inefficient, two trillion-dollar health care system has revolved around who should pay, but the problem will not be fixed until we find ways to increase access and reduce costs that have been rising for many years at more than twice the rate of inflation.

Google Health to Create and Dominate Next Generation PHRs HyperLink

 Google Health could be the event of the decade in advancing health care reform not just healthcare information technology reform, but health care system reform. They promise simultaneously to create AND dominate the market for next generation personal health records (PHRs).

Express-Lane Medicine HyperLink

 Retail clinics grow, and some physicians are not happy.

Convenient Care Clinics - An Employer Solution HyperLink

 You may not have noticed but Wal-Mart announced yesterday they will be expanding their in store healthcare clinics from 76 today to over 400 over the next few years.




Aetna Expands Efforts To Help Consumers Purchase Health Care Based On Overall HyperLink

 Health care transparency expands to new locations, helps a total of 3.5 million Aetna members make well informed health care decisions

Not much interest in savings HyperLink

 If you are looking to slash your companys health insurance premiums, Merrill Wall has some advice for you: consider health savings accounts. - Article courtesy Las Vegas Review-Journal

MEDICAL BANKING PROJECT AWARDS "PERSON OF THE YEAR" HyperLink

 Two national executives were recognized for “outstanding contributions" in the new field of medical banking at the 5th National Medical Banking Institute, recently held in Marietta, GA. The Institute, an educational arm of the Medical Banking Project, grew over 55% in attendance and is a defining event for the emerging medical banking industry.

Administration costs hike healthcare bills up to 30% HyperLink

 "In contrast, more than threequarters (76 percent) of the U.S. consumers surveyed said they think that health care administration should account for just 10 percent or less of total health care costs, with a large majority indicating they would be "highly upset" if those administrative costs were as high as 30 percent. Approximately eight in 10 consumers (79 percent) said they would like to see an itemization of the portion of their health care bills that goes to administration versus clinical care."

CCA sets new standards for convenient care clinics HyperLink

 "One priority was setting quality standards," said Tine Hansen-Turton, its executive director. "As an industry, you want to be out first with your own standards." Story Courtesy Philadelphia Inquirer

India becoming hot medical tourism destination HyperLink

 While the area of health and medical tourism has so far been relatively unexplored, recently a lot of impetus has being given, not only by the Government of India, but also the various state tourism boards and the private sector consisting of travel agents, tour operators, hotel companies and other accommodation providers.

BCBS Takes a Look at Bumrungrad HyperLink

 Commentary by Dick Matthews.

US Comptroller David Walker: "Wake up before its too late" HyperLink

 "Theyll be eligible for Medicare just three years later and when those boomers start retiring en masse, then that will be a tsunami of spending that could swamp our ship of state if we dont get serious." - Story courtesy 60 Minutes

Michael McCallister: No single cure for health system woes HyperLink

 When Humana Inc.s president and CEO breezed into town last week, he brought dire warnings about the future of health care and the need for drastic changes to the entire system.

Health Politics Video Interviews HyperLink

 See Video Interviews Recorded Live at Consumer Health World 06; -




Trusted.MD - Changing The Face Of Healthcare Blogging HyperLink

 Trusted.MD Social Network to Bring Blogs and Interactive Media into Healthcare, in Partnership with Transmarx LLC Conferences -




The Medical Blog Network HyperLink

 CDHCC Spring 2006



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